


Student Council Santa

by Fire_Bear



Series: Walking in a Winter Wonderland [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, Crushes, High School, M/M, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-13 02:25:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12973683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Bear/pseuds/Fire_Bear
Summary: Ivan is on the Student Council and his best friends have organised a Secret Santa. It just so happens that his crush, Arthur, is the Student Council President and so he's in the Secret Santa as well...





	Student Council Santa

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sadaf_Awesome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sadaf_Awesome/gifts).



"Ivan!" shouted Alfred, startling the teenage boy badly. "Wait!"

Turning, Ivan blinked at Alfred, wondering what his friend could possibly want. He was currently very busy with his Student Council duties, something Alfred should have been helping with. Instead, Alfred was waving around a small, cardboard box. Ivan thought it was the box the pens had once resided in. There didn't seem to be any in it now.

"Did you need something?" asked Ivan with a smile, always happy to help.

"Yeah! Remember how we were talking about a Secret Santa?"

Perplexed, Ivan shook his head, brow furrowing as he tried to recall any time it had been mentioned. Also, he may have been on the Student Council but he had other friends and he wasn't sure who 'we' referred to. "No. It is only November..."

"Gotta get in early, Ivan, man," said Alfred with a blinding grin. He seemed excited, if his bouncing was any indication. "If we leave it too late, everyone'll be too busy trying to buy Christmas presents for their families and close friends."

"Okay," said Ivan, still confused. "Who is 'we'?"

Alfred rolled his eyes dramatically. "Student Council, _duh_."

"Oh. When did we talk about that?" Ivan asked, thinking back over their meetings of the last few weeks.

For some reason, his question made Alfred smirk. "Well, it was that day that Arthur was walking around the room with freshly made agendas or whatever. He almost caught what you were doodling in your notebook, remember?"

Ivan instantly turned red. Whenever Arthur was in the room, he couldn't help but sketch his likeness or doodle hearts with their initials in them. He was both terrified of Arthur finding out and eager to surprise him with a love confession.

Over the past few months, Arthur had been able to shine as the student council president, voted in while only in his second year of high school. Ivan was in the year above and had opted to become a general member of the council when no-one had voted him in for any of the major roles. He had been quite miffed but, upon watching Arthur efficiently deal with everything while, apparently, staying close to the top of his class, he had grown quite fond of his lesser role. It allowed him to be in the council room with the opportunity to merely watch Arthur working. Ivan was impressed by him and, as he watched, he learnt more about him, learnt about sides of him that some people didn't see.

His crush had grown and he was barely functioning around Arthur as it was – it was no wonder that he'd completely missed the discussion on a Secret Santa.

"Ah," he said, giving Alfred a sheepish look.

Alfred was grinning even more widely. "You're so in love with him, it's kinda awesome. And kinda weird he hasn't figured it out yet."

"I don't think..." Ivan began but he trailed off and shrugged.

"Anyways," Alfred said, getting back to the task at hand. "Me and Yao are organising it and I've just finished folding names – look!" Alfred shook the box and Ivan peered inside to find little squares of folded papers staring back at him. "You can be the first one to pick!"

"Shouldn't we be doing this all at the same-?" Ivan began, puzzled.

"Nah, it's cool, man. Like, what does it matter? It's all gonna end up the same, anyway, right?" Alfred shook the box, rather insistently. When Ivan didn't move, he sighed. "Look, fine, here," he said and plucked a square from the box. He held it out to Ivan who shrugged a shoulder and took it. Using one hand, he flicked the square open and looked at the name.

He stared.

"Who'd you get?" asked Alfred in a tone of voice that had Ivan rather suspicious. Frowning slightly, he looked up at Alfred who grimaced. "Oh, man, is it me?" he said, now seeming utterly oblivious.

Ivan gave up trying to figure out why he felt like he was being manipulated. "No," he told Alfred, glancing back down at the piece of paper. "I got... I got Arthur..."

"Really? Oh, wow, cool!" Alfred exclaimed. "That's perfect for you!"

"Is it?"

"Yeah. You can show Artie how much you like him!" Alfred declared, apparently confident that Ivan would be able to do so.

Grimacing, Ivan shook his head. "I don't think I can do that... Let me pick someone else." And he reached out for the box.

"No!" exclaimed Alfred, drawing the attention of students passing by. Alfred jerked the box away from Ivan. "You can't do that! That's not how Secret Santa works!"

"But-"

"No can do, Ivan, buddy. You gotta figure out the  _perfect_ gift for Artie." Alfred softened a little as he caught sight of Ivan's worried expression. "Don't worry about it too much, Ivan. He won't know who it's from – it's a secret, after all. But make it spectacular and he'll know someone likes him. Then you can start dropping hints and maybe you can do your confession thing on Valentine's Day. Sound good?"

"Not really..." said Ivan slowly, his mind turning to what could possibly be the  _perfect_ gift for Arthur.

"Great!" said Alfred, evidently ignoring him. "Gotta go find the others now!" And off he went, leaving Ivan clutching the Council work he had to do and the piece of paper with Arthur's name on it.

Just what could he get Arthur that would impress him?

* * *

Later that day, the Student Council had a meeting. Unlike most days, the entire body of the Council was present. Usually, someone would miss it for their 'more important' Council duties or they were in other clubs or were just off sick. Naturally, Arthur seemed to be suspicious.

"Hm," Arthur said, eyeing the students standing around the edges of the room from lack of seats. Ivan was seated at the table, where he usually sat, with a clear view of Arthur at his desk. Nobody had dared asked him to move but he wasn't sure if Alfred and Yao had warned them off or if his worried glaring whenever anyone got close had frightened them more than he thought it would.

"Is there a problem, Mister President?" asked Francis, looking amused.

"Not as such," Arthur said, though his eyes narrowed. "I'm just... impressed that so many of my Council members are willing to work today."

"I work when I'm not here!" Antonio piped up.

"I meant, willing to work on Council matters," Arthur retorted. "Not, willing to work in your family's restaurant."

"Ah."

"Right," said Arthur, raising his voice to be heard over the murmured conversations still taking place. "Since there's not much room, I won't bother handing out the agendas. I will, however, start with the most important and work our way down to minor matters. This means that we'll be starting with the issue with-"

"Secret Santa!" yelled Alfred so suddenly that everyone jumped. When silence fell in the wake of his shout, people giggled at their reactions. A couple of them gave a small cheer. All of them stopped when they noticed Arthur's stony look. Ivan loved that look – it was so powerful.

"What?" Arthur said, flatly.

"I, uh." Alfred grimaced, glanced across the room, shrugged a shoulder and took a breath. "Well, we gotta start off with our Secret Santa! While we're all, y'know" – he put on an accent nowhere near the realm of Arthur's – "present and correct."

"Yes, I understand that sort of necessity," said Arthur, dryly. "However, I was more referring to _what_ it was you were saying."

"Secret Santa," Alfred repeated slowly. " _You_ know-"

"Yes, I do seem to remember _what_ it is, Alfred. But what I want to know is... _when_ did we discuss the possibility of doing one? I'm not sure everyone here would appreciate the work needed to get the whole school involved."

"Not the _whole_ school." Alfred rolled his eyes at Arthur's presumption. "Just us. The Student Council. We thought it'd be fun, remember?"

"No," said Arthur, shortly.

"Aw, c'mon! It was that day there was an emergency with one of the clubs – the art one, I think."

Ivan frowned at that. There hadn't been an emergency the day Arthur had almost caught him doodling. What was Alfred talking about?

There was a short pause. Everyone held their breaths. "Did you perhaps discuss this when I wasn't in the room?" Arthur asked through gritted teeth.

"Uh... Maybe?"

"And you didn't think to tell me afterwards? Or ask for permission?"

"Do we really need permission?" asked Francis, raising an eyebrow. "We're friends and we can organise a Secret Santa without it having to be voted in by the Council."

"Hmm." There was another short silence before Arthur sighed. "Oh, fine. Let's get this over with."

"Yay!" cried Alfred, bounding across the room to Arthur. "Here. You choose first."

Arthur shook his head in exasperation but dipped his hand in and pulled out a little slip of paper. Slowly, he unfolded it – and his eyes widened. Ivan watched him closely as he slipped the name into his pocket as quickly as possible. To him, it seemed like Arthur was either excited or nervous or both. Had Arthur got someone he liked? Or someone he wasn't sure about?

"Right!" said Alfred, turning away from Arthur. He made his way down Ivan's side of the table, just as Yao stepped forward, hand raised, obviously cutting to the chase. They collided and Alfred dropped the box, little slips of paper sliding out and across the floor. "Oh, shoot!"

"Ah, sorry, Alfred," said Yao, crouching down with him to help.

Ivan watched Alfred scoop up all the fallen ones into his box. Yao helped with one hand – while he reached under the table and dragged out a duplicate box with the other. Blinking, Ivan watched Alfred shove the box he'd just been holding out of sight and grabbed the one Yao had pulled out. They both straightened and Yao dipped his hand into the new box to pull one out. When they'd finished, they both turned and caught Ivan's eye.

Frowning at them, he tried to psychically ask just what was going on. They seemed to understand him: Alfred grinned; Yao smirked; neither of them said anything as Alfred continued on his journey. Slowly, Ivan's mind turned over the events until, by the time everyone had a name, he realised what had happened.

Cheeks turning pink, he sneaked a glance at Arthur whose face was impassive.

* * *

In the week leading up to the Christmas dance, Alfred went around all the Student Council members and reminded them of the big meeting that would happen the day before. He not-so-subtly hinted that they would all be exchanging their Secret Santa gifts so Ivan made sure to have it in his bag the night before. And then he checked it was still there an hour after he'd put it in. Then again just after his family's favourite TV programmes had ended. After his little sister teased him about it, he had to check, just to make sure she hadn't meddled with it. Then he moved his bag and hid it, leaving a note in its place to remind him of what he'd done.

He still had to check when he went to bed and in the morning before he left.

At school, he made sure to put it his locker. His nerves made him return there after every class, not caring if he was late to the following ones. For some reason, the teachers didn't question him. Only his cousin Katyusha, the school nurse, asked him why he kept coming and going. Ivan had dodged her questions and hurried off.

Finally, the day ended, the bell rang, and Ivan was able to take the present out of his locker and carry it carefully towards the room. It was oddly shaped because of the three things he'd bought. He'd actually gone over their limit but he wasn't about to tell anyone that.

Once he reached the door, he paused, a little nervous. He desperately hoped that Arthur would like his present. Even if Arthur didn't know who it was from, Ivan would settle for watching Arthur's surprise morph into happiness. Maybe he'd blush. That would be the best present Ivan would get today, he was sure of it.

Having perked himself up, he entered the room, blissful smile still on his face. Everyone seemed to be there. Arthur looked irked, drumming his fingers on his desk. A pile of presents was in the middle of the table, the Council members jostling to see if they could see their own. Some of them were big, others quite small. Thankfully, Ivan's seemed to be somewhere between the biggest and the smallest so he felt a little relieved. Now he just had to set it on the table...

...without Arthur seeing.

Glancing at the President, he noticed that Arthur was looking straight at him, evidently impatient to get to the real point of the meeting. Ivan saw his unamused expression and shrank into himself a little, though he couldn't take his eyes off Arthur. Seeing this, Arthur seemed to jolt and glanced away, pointedly looking at the pile of presents. Wondering what that was about, Ivan took another step forward, checking to see if Arthur was still paying attention.

Suddenly, a hand clapped down on Ivan's shoulder and he looked around to find Alfred standing beside him. "You're here! Finally!" He reached forward to tug the tag of the present Ivan held around so he could read it. Though, Alfred barely glanced at it before he looked back up. "Oh, hey, Artie! Ivan's got your present!"

Ivan froze, eyes wide. He didn't dare look at Arthur. However, he did have the presence of mind to turn to Alfred more fully, sickly sweet smile taking on a hard edge. Politely, he said, "I thought this was supposed to be a secret."

Alfred shrank away from him slightly but managed to stand his ground. "Ahahaha! Everyone tells each other, anyway, so it doesn't matter!"

Narrowing his eyes at Alfred, he remembered the trick he'd done with Yao. He raised his gaze: no-one caught it. Yao was flicking through some papers, likely calculating how much money the Council had spent on the Christmas party. Ivan watched as a single droplet of sweat ran down his nose. With a jerky movement, Yao brushed it away.

Someone cleared their throat and Ivan jumped in surprise. He turned to find that Arthur was on his feet. Arthur was also frowning, evidently not amused that Alfred had completely neglected to keep anything a secret. "Well, then," he said, raising his eyes to meet Ivan's. "Let's get this over and done with, shall we?" He held out his hand.

Heart beating far too quickly, Ivan took two long strides and handed the present over as carefully as he could. Then he stepped back, hovering as Arthur sat back down and began to unwrap it. Just like in everything he did, Arthur was careful, sliding his fingers under the flaps of golden wrapping paper to pry them apart. Eventually, the gifts were bared and Arthur stared down at them, eyes wide and cheeks pink.

Ivan had thought long and hard about what to get Arthur and had settled on something to do with Harry Potter. There were a lot of websites and shops which sold such things and Ivan had eventually settled on three of them: a purple Hogwarts journal with a little clasp bearing the crest and ribbons to keep his place so that Arthur could write down important things; a cauldron mug for Arthur's beloved tea; a unicorn from the official Harry Potter collection.

For a while, no-one spoke. Arthur stayed quite still, having placed each item carefully onto the desk. Ivan swallowed nervously and resisted the urge to wring his hands. Instead, he smiled as genially as possible. "I, um, thought you would like this. As it's the twentieth anniversary... I think?"

"It's..." Arthur stopped, blinking at his present before turning his befuddled expression up to blink at Ivan. "It's perfect," he quietly said. Then he seemed to shake himself, frowned and said, louder, "It's too much. Wasn't there a monetary limit?"

"Well..." Ivan dropped his gaze to stare at the floor. "I thought... you deserved it."

"What? What for?"

Shrugging, Ivan glanced up at him with a fond smile. "Because you do."

Arthur's cheeks became even redder. "O-Oh."

Apparently, Alfred was fed up with waiting, for he grabbed a parcel from the table and thrust it into Ivan's arms. "This is yours," he declared. "It's from Arthur."

"Wha-? Alfred!" Arthur cried, his face practically burning from his intense blush. Ivan thought it was very cute.

Carefully, he turned the present in his hands. It was smaller than his had been and whatever was inside was soft. Wondering what it could be, he slowly unwrapped it, careful not to rip whatever was inside. Once he'd gotten the plain, red paper off, he stared down at something knitted from pale, blue material. When he shook it out, he gaped.

It was a new scarf.

Ivan stared at it. There was another silence. Someone coughed, startling him again, and he looked up to find Arthur ducking his head.

"I-I made it," he murmured, almost too quietly for Ivan to hear. "I know your grandmother made your other one and that's why you wear it all the time, but I just thought... a new one would be nice? But, well, now that I think about it, it's rather pathetic. I'll... I'll get you something else, Ivan, I'm sorry." By that point, Arthur was looking up at him, apologetically.

Instead of handing it back, Ivan looped it around his neck. He could hear Arthur's sharp intake of breath. "No. I like this."

Arthur grimaced. "But... it's nowhere near as expensive as what you bought me-"

"I wanted to," Ivan insisted, smile widening.

"There's got to be something else I can get you. What... What else would you like?"

For a moment, Ivan considered just saying 'you'. But he was aware how that could be taken and Francis was in the room. Besides, Arthur might get offended or flustered and say 'no' on reflex. Perhaps... Yes, there was something else he wanted...

"A date," he said.

That made Arthur pause. "What?" he breathed, his eyes wide again.

"Take me on a date. There's a nice little café not far from my house that does lovely Christmas themed teas and coffees. Take me there."

"I..." Arthur stared at Ivan, his eyes darting across his face. Ivan made sure to smile at him, though it was probably a little sheepish. He seemed to find what he was looking for because he visibly relaxed and smiled back. "Are you doing anything on Saturday?"

"No," Ivan answered, his smile becoming a grin.

"Then I'll meet you there," Arthur told him.

"Yay!" exclaimed Alfred, drawing both their attention to the rest of the room. Ivan's brow furrowed at the interruption. "Finally! Let's get on with this!" And, with considerable excitement he began to distribute presents.

Ivan looked back at Arthur – who smiled upon noticing Ivan's eyes upon him – and was rather glad he'd participated.

**Author's Note:**

> The presents Ivan gives to Arthur can be found on [this site](https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi7jtXG2PvXAhXDIsAKHRGkDz4QFghIMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hawkin.com%2Fmovie-and-tv%2Fharry-potter&usg=AOvVaw0r4z5FhLXQMTUE1Twk8uzC) and [this one](https://shop.wbstudiotour.co.uk/soft-toys.html). 
> 
> And there are such things as Christmas themed teas - I double checked after writing that in. Not sure if there's actually any cafés or coffee shops or whatever that offer them, though...


End file.
